Imagine having one less day of school in a week, one less early wake up, one less day of work. One would think a lighter schedule would be a good thing but it does not always seem to be the case.

As some schools and professions switch to a four-day work week, students and staff have thought about how shorter school weeks could positively and negatively affect school communities.

“There would be more educational value inside the school system,” Barton Elementary School teacher, Paul Pecorale said. “Students would have more hours in school and less problems on streets, in the community, and create safer neighborhoods. There would be more time to enrich lessons, more time for extracurricular activities and more hours of instruction time.”

A student from Shoreham-Wading River High School, Mary Kilkenny, agrees that shorter school weeks would be a positive as well.

“I feel like kids would enjoy school more because we would have less days, so there would be a lighter workload,” Kilkenny said.

Pecorale agrees that it would be nice to have an extra day off, though he recognizes there are some negatives.

“All year schooling could be negative because the hours would need to be made up somewhere,” Pecorale said. “There would also be longer days for students.”

At the same time, Kilkenny recognizes how this will also be a positive for the staff.

“They would have more time to grade things and they would not be as stressed out,” Kilkenny said.

She also understands that there are negatives to shorter weeks.

“We would not be able to learn as much because we would have one less day and all of those days missed is the amount of work missed.”

A student from Mount Sinai High School, Ava McLoughlin, states that shorter weeks can positively affect students and staff health.

“I think that it would positively affect students because they would be able to focus more on their own well-being like sleep and health, which would make all students perform better,” McLoughlin said. “Four day school weeks also would give students and staff more family time.”

Having more time in the week would likely allow students to get more rest. A University of Pennsylvania graduate, Kelly Capello from the Chronobiology and Sleep Institute, emphasizes the extraordinary benefits of increased sleep for teenagers.

“Sleep research from the last 20 years indicates that sleep does more than simply give students the energy they need to study and perform well on tests,” Capello said. “Sleep actually helps students learn, memorize, retain, recall, and use their new knowledge to come up with creative and innovative solutions.”

As a student, McLoughlin recognizes that there will be negatives to a four-day school week, as well.

“We would not be learning as much, which would have to be made up with longer school days or longer school years.”

On the other hand, Pecorale continues to explain how shorter school weeks could be a positive for students and staff.

“Teachers would have more planning time and lessons would be more continuous and have more of a flow to the lesson,” Pecorale explains. “Both students and staff would be more refreshed with the extra day off.”